A PERSPECTIVE ON FEAR

It is not something you’re born with, but something you learn. And you do not learn it because you need to learn it or because you learn it from a happy situation. Often times, fear is laced within a scar that is hidden. People hide their scars when they think it makes them less attractive or less beautiful. It’s the same thing with fear. People internalize their fears and don’t talk about them because they think it makes them less attractive or less beautiful.

Some people are aware of their fears and have made a lifelong commitment to facing them. Others have allowed their fears to guide them in life. Never risking too much, playing it ‘safe’. Only going so far within relationships and with people whom they meet. But those who have made a commitment to facing their fears often don’t realize that they have a fear until someone, whom they do not know very well, triggers it.

Triggers of fear can be very random, overwhelming and surprising. How one addresses and deals with these triggers is a choice. But because people who have made a commitment to face their fears in life have often internalized their battle, they only really know how to go within themselves and try to deal with it internally. Alone. It’s not that they do not want to connect with others, but they feel shame and remorse that that fear exists, and feel that they will no longer be attractive to another if they see it.

The thing of it is, fear can sometimes be like a gust of wind, bringing with it everything great and everything not so great that was surrounding you and the person who triggered the fear. It could be the most beautiful connection, your ideal in fact, and you want to enter that space with the other person, but fear is just blowing this strong current at you, creating a small tornado-like storm around your being. You have no clue on how to stop it or calm it down enough to maintain the connection with the other person.

In many ways, you feel crippled. Stunned. You think to yourself, “I just met the most incredible person. Someone I’ve been hoping to meet. And here they are, ready and willing to explore this connection with me, but I’m so scared.” My fear questions everything, “Is this real? Are they real? You’ve not been here before; you think you can actually do this? They will see you’re scarred and then they will walk away, don’t you forget that.”

You do not want to push people away, but because you allow your fear to take you into your Self, you aren’t able to nurture the connection you discovered with the other person. And they do not know you well enough to know if you’re still there and interested, or if you’re pulling away. They do not have a good reason to stand the fear storm with you, because you haven’t given them enough to go on.

As you’re trying to sort through your fear, your surroundings become foggy and you can no longer maintain eye contact with them. You want to ask them to be patient with you, to wait for you, and maybe even hold your hand, but you think that that’s way too much to ask from someone you don’t know very well. You feel them slowly pulling away. Shutting down. Shutting you out. You hate seeing the change in the energy between the two of you, but the fear has gotten really strong at this point. It has exhausted you and you’re falling. A thick fog has formed around you and you have no way of seeing past it. There is nothing for you to do except to try to minimize the pain of the fall by curling up into yourself, completely looking away from the person you wanted to let in.

After some time, you wake up and realize that you’ve managed to survive and exhaust your fear. Sure, the fear storm has scattered all the shame and remorse on the ground surrounding you, but you do not reach for them. The scar your fear was interlaced with is completely exposed, but that doesn’t make you feel less beautiful anymore. You realize that the fog has cleared. It’s not sunny but it’s calm. You look around, trying to locate the footprints of the person you wanted to let in, but the fear storm was so strong that it has erased them. You start to panic and begin thinking of how to get ahold of them, how to reach them. You have no signal on your phone. There is an old payphone but the cord has been cut. You try walking down this path and that path, but they’re all dead ends.

You make your way back to the space you first met them, the road of brave souls, and you sit there, alone, with the hope that they might come back for you and give you another chance. You’re there for only a short while, because you realize that it’s not about going back, but moving forward. If you cross paths again, you’ll have to show your scars and tell them those stories. Otherwise that fear you broke free of, will win. And fear will always win…. if you let it.